Well, I bought this car for the engine, but it's actually quite a nice car! So I guess it's time for a thread :-) Crappy pics from the auction, don't do it justice, really:

Fluffy covers were gone when I picked it up, seats are OK under them, so I prefer without them.

All I've done since picking it up so far is tighten the belts up (super loose) and fit new wiper blades. Also remove cam belt cover to check condition. But it needs some more love...

Coolant has not been maintained, to the extent of crunchy hoses. This'll need some sort of flush and the hoses pulling and clearing of the scale. Then fresh coolant putting back in. You can never really recover from this, but I can certainly make it a fair bit better.

Shifting is average, but the ATF is probably from 1990 given it's a jap import car and the rest of the maintenance has been poor. Could also be the kick down cable a bit too tight. I have seen it shift correctly out of first at WOT but sometimes it's reluctant, and in all gears it seems to want to be in a lower gear than I want unless I almost completely lift off. Flush, filter, cable check, sorted, hopefully.

Brake wobble is present. I never solved this on my original 740 wagon in the US, so I'm skeptical about putting time into this car. The 240 brakes are far superior.

Dashboard isn't healthy, odometer, trip counter, and gas gauge are all not working correctly or at all. I think the gauge will be an easy fix, unsure about the odo, but worth a look.

Engine oil looks dirty, but not terrible (the 940's oil was hideous). However last night I noticed that the filter has gone rusty on the outside, LOL. The ATF dipstick was rusted, too. This car has sat dead still for quite a few years probably ending only about a year ago.

Tail lights are pretty faded/UV damaged, so I'd like to source a pair of minters from a cold place, if anyone sees this and can help, hit me up.

So today I might have to do the coolant flush work, and perhaps an oil change, and maybe lube the alternator shaft which is squeaky and tighten the belts a bit more as they still scream through from 4000 to 6000. May head around to a certain good mate's place for an ATF swap too, at some point soon.

I kinda want to make it into a sleeper with a powerful engine but keep the exact current look. Hmmm. This would also let me do a more mild setup on the 240 which is how I'd like to keep it, smooth and refined.

Took the Suzuki into work today, but had to go out in traffic to pick up some sauce and some wine, so went in this thing instead to relax. In between those missions I took a close look at the sun roof. I'd been told it would leak if I opened it and therefore I shouldn't open it. So I respected that for a while. The other day I opened it out of curiosity and found no rust and that the only thing wrong was that the front wind dam lip thingy would not sit down far enough and would catch the roof as it closed. I was able to close it fully by holding that out of the way with a finger at the last second. So tonight I straightened that wind dam thingy a bit and now it clears near perfectly as it closes. I also noticed that the grease on the runners had gone kinda hard and was balling up with movement, so cleaned all of that off, and brushed it all down with some amsoil waterproof synth grease. Now the movement is like butter and it closes without help. Bring on summer! :-D

Pulled another couple of hoses out of it and cleared them of crusty rust buildup! The ones to the reservoir bottle, main and breather. Blasted the hose through the exposed orifices and washed out some more brown dust. Cleaned out the bottle as best I could, but not well enough to keep me happy. Only the lower radiator hose to go now before I give it a three stage flush and fill it with green shit. I may find/clean some other small hoses, too, but it depends how hard they are to get at and how likely they are to be bumped/moved.

Also swiped a screw out of the 940 wagon to put the driver's sun visor back to original, and glued the broken pieces of the fitting back together. Won't reinstall that until I've reinforced it enough to be strong enough to not break in use, though.

Finally, there is this plastic cover in front of the sweet sunroof that was loose on one side and didn't fit properly. The other side had a hole through the lining for the plastic leg to penetrate. This side did not. So I cut one carefully and now it's like new again. Except it can't ever have been right. Unless the headlining got replaced? But I doubt that. Factory defect never mentioned by original owner? Odd.

Battery needs to be secured. The clamp is missing completely, but the battery is brand new, which is nice.

Installed it on the drive into work, and it's functional, but not great because one side couldn't be easily reinforced and immediately split. However the other side flexed and is still binding it all togeher. Hence functional. One screw hole has been violated, too, so I'll have to fix that with some mig + drill or some such.

Picked up the new generic brand fan belt this morning and installed it just now, and the squeal is gone, as is the noticable boost in power at 4k when the old belt let go! :-D Electric fan is definitely in the future of this vehicle! This is the first vehicle I've noticed the fan drag on. I was told by my father that a VW will feel like it's doubled in power if the fan belt fails. Pull over immediately, he said, for obvious reasons. This might be 5 or 10% but it's quite a lot really. No CAI could ever do this for you :-D

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